The present invention relates to image data transfer method and system therefor in the client/server computing system where still pictures of the document and moving pictures images are registered as image data into the server and the required image is transferred in response to the client request, and more particularly to the image data transfer method and system thereof, including the electronic mail wherein processing of the entire system is carried out by sequentially transmitting to two or more clients the image data such as still images of the document and moving pictures, based on a specified rule called xe2x80x9cwork flowxe2x80x9d.
The document filing system was a prior art system to store the document in the form of image data and to retrieve it by computers. For example, HITFILE-6500 has been a well known document filing system product. In the client/server system configured by using this filing system as a server, data are searched in response to each client requirement, and are transferred via the network.
Furthermore, a system called PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) is proposed in Japan. This system provides management of the image for medical use including roentgenogram used for diagnosis in the medical field as computer data, for example, xe2x80x9cCurrent situation and future of the image data base for medical usexe2x80x9d by Nishihara in The Journal of Information Processing Society of Japan V, 33, N 5, PP. 478-485.
Since much net work transfer time is required to send in a great deal of high definition images via the network, this publication proposes a method of transferring the data of the patient in advance to the terminal in the diagnosis room when diagnostic reservation has been made. The known case of this method is the image data system for medical use disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open NO.2-140875 (1990).
A system called Work Flow which replaces the flow of documents in the office by the data transfer on the computer is coming to be widely known in recent years, for example, electronic document approval system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open NO.2-278458 (1990).
This system allows each user to provide processing in the step which the data corresponding to the document are transferred one by one between two or more computers connected by the LAN (local area network). In this work flow system, the data passage is managed according to the rules which are modeled steps of processing the relevant documents in advance.
Accordingly, the system knows the next data or its candidate to be requested by each client in the portion where the processing flow is managed. Normally, such management is provided by the software by the name of Flow Controller. The device where the software operates includes the server which stores the data.
The rule for document filing system and the system called PACS have not taken into account the system called Work Flow where the flow of the document in the system is replaced by the flow of data in the computer, namely, image data including still pictures of the document and moving pictures are transmitted between two or more clients.
In addition the rule for system called Work Flow has not taken into account the problem of sending the data to the client, using the information managed in the flow controller of the sever.
An object of the present invention is to provide a image data transfer method and system therefor, which has a high speed response to the user request by ensure that the highly probable next image data to be requested by each client is searched and sent from the server to the client in advance, in the client/server computer system including electronic mail by the name of Work Flow.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a image data transfer method and system therefor, the image data transfer system ensuring improved system availability factor by substantial reduction of the time between request made by the user for the image data to be processed and display of the data, in the client/server computer system including electronic mail by the name of Work Flow.
According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided an image data transfer system for transferring image data via the network connecting between a plurality of clients and a server, said server comprising:
(1) a image data base storage means to store the image data base having files;
(2) a file search means for searching at least the files to be processed by the desired client from the image data base having files stored in the image data base storage means;
(3) a transfer rule for storage means to specifying in advance and storing at least the transfer rule for to be transferred to each of the clients via the network at least for each file, with respect to the image data base having two or more files stored in the image data storage means; and
(4) a transfer rule for management means for transmit to a desired client via the said network the transfer information specified by the transfer rule for stored in the transfer protocol rule for storage means;
thereby transmitting the image data related to the file searched by the filed search means to the desired client via the network, based on the transfer request from a desired client.
The following describes the steps of the data being sent to the client when the image data required by the client is supplied by the server and is displayed on the client, in the client/server type computer system.
(1) Request given by the client to the server to search
(2) Search by the server, and reply of the search result and information on the position of the data in storage
(3) Request given by the client to the server based on search result
(4) Transfer of data via the network
(5) Display of transferred data on the client screen
Namely, steps of search and data transfer are required until the data is displayed after the request is given by the client to get the data to be processed. The configuration according to the present invention, however, requires only a very short time until the data is actually displayed, even when the relevant image data has a great capacity, without the user feeling that he is make to wait.
Especially in the client/server computer system in the work flow as in the present invention, the document image data are often used as data, and the job target comprises comparatively routine works in many cases.
In such cases, said configuration according to the present invention improves the response performances after specification of the document, and ensures substantial improvement in the operation efficiency of client/server computer system in the work flow, without being affected directly by the user productivity.
As shown by said configuration, the client/server computer system in the work flow according to the present invention, the majority of the implementation means are configured in the server, so all search activities are done by processing within the server, resulting in reduction of the number of communications via the network as well as reduction of network loads.